Surprised to be Dead
by Death101- Fox Version
Summary: Yusuke Urameshi. Age 14. Hair colour, black. Eye colour, brown. Occupation: ultra punk. He was supposed to be the hero of this story but oddly enough. He's dead.


_Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. Much of the dialogue is taken directly from the manga published in English by Viz Media and anime produced in English by Funimation._

Yusuke Urameshi. Age 14. Hair colour, black. Eye colour, brown. Occupation: ultra punk.

He was supposed to be the hero of this story but oddly enough. He's dead.

**Surprised to be Dead or Goodbye, Material World!**

Yeah. Apparently I'm supposed to be the hero of this story. Even now after everything has passed I still don't have a clue how it all worked out as well as it did or why I wound up the hero. There were at least a hundred times where we could have failed and the whole world could have been doomed but somehow it all worked out. Anyways, guess I'd better start explaining since Koenma put me up to this.

Okay. The day this all started I went to school. I usually avoided the place since the teachers were insane and I had better things to do. Weekdays the arcade had all the games half-priced and besides, someone had to show those other would-be punks who's the king. Anyways, for the first time in ten days, I went to school. Ugh. I wasn't there five minutes when Keiko tracked me down and started harping on me. I was just minding my business (and ignoring the announcement that kept demanding I head to the guidance room) and she stomped onto the roof.

"I figured you'd be up here," she started shouting. Of course, since she was looking at me she noticed my cigarette and then started bugging me about that. "And **smoking** again."

I figured I might as well reply just to try to get her to leave me alone. "Nice to see you too, Keiko. Nice uniform."

Unfortunately, I must have used that reply too many times since she had comeback ready just for me. "All the girls' have to wear these. Just like all the boys have to wear blue uniforms, which I can't help but notice you aren't."

I rolled my eyes as I snuffed out the cigarette. "Give me a break, Keiko. I look better in green."

She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes back at me. "Maybe I'd be more lenient with you if you showed up to school more often, Yusuke. You give our class a horrible attendance record which gets me in trouble as class president!"

For a second I thought she was going to rush into her favourite rant about how 'I don't care about anyone other than myself and I don't even do that right' but she paused to glare at me.

Rather than give her another reason to keep talking, I rose to my feet. "Fine. I'll go see Takenaka. You're a regular pain, you know that?"

She closed her eyes and turned around so that I could follow her down the stairs. Her skirt switched around her legs and caught my attention.

I lifted Keiko's skirt and said the first thing that popped into my head. "Nice uniform, Keiko. It's lacy."

As expected, her slap sent me reeling and I crashed to the ground with a goofy grin on my face. Whatever, it was worth it.

I heard her shout at my retreating back but I didn't know at the time what trouble I was going to wander into.

While I made my way towards the back of the school, Keiko stood in the doorway to the roof glaring in the direction I had disappeared into. Her two friends, the short one with glasses and the tall blonde with pigtails, slowly peeked around the corner to stare at Keiko probably thinking she was nuts.

One of them made some comment about if I had left yet causing Keiko to pay attention to them instead of running after me. I didn't know it at the time but she was working on ruining my rep saying that I wasn't anything to worry about. If I recall the conversation went something like this:

"Has the great Urameshi left?" asked one of the girls.

Keiko, ever the goody-two-shoes, turned to her friends and wondered why they were hiding. "What are you doing over there?"

"We… we're afraid of the Great Urameshi. He's scary," said the other one. I think it was the one with glasses. "He scares even the teachers! If he whistles two thousand bad guys will appear. With guns!"

That probably surprised Keiko since she replied, "I didn't know Yusuke was that awesome—

Ow. Lay off Keiko. I'm just telling it like it was.

Fine. Fine. I'll tell the truth but my version would have been better. Damn.

That probably surprised Keiko since she replied, "Come on. Yusuke doesn't even know how to whistle."

The other girls were obviously surprised by Keiko's blatant lack of knowledge. "What?" they replied.

"And Yusuke couldn't order two people around let alone two thousand," Keiko continued unaware of how she could wreck my rep. (For the record, I can actually whistle.) "He doesn't have many friends."

Thankfully, her friends preferred to listen to gossip rather than the girl who would know so my rep was safe for the moment.

Meanwhile, I had made my way to the back of the school. Takenaka continued to call for me over the PA system and I continued to ignore it. At the time, I was convinced his only joy in life was harassing me. I was just about turned the corner when I heard two kids from my class talking. The smell of cigarette smoke drifted my way.

"No way!" one of them was saying.

"Way," the other replied. "15,000 yen."

For those of you who care, Keiko says that's about $125 US in 2008. Who knows how much your dollar is now.

So I stepped around the corner and spotted the two guys. Both of them were smoking and hadn't even noticed me yet. The one without glasses held a lighter out for his buddy as he explained why 15,000 yen was important.

"Some punk tried to hassle me so I said I was Urameshi's cousin."

The other guy grinned as he took a drag of the cigarette. "So he gave you his wallet? That's fresh but what are you going to do if Urameshi finds out you said that cousin stuff?"

Good question. I figured I should show them. As I took a step towards them the idiot with the wallet, he held the wallet and waved it in the air. Idiot.

"Oh spare me," he laughed. "That blockhead will probably believe it."

They both started laughing and I took another step forward. Now I was staring down on them. The one with glasses caught sight of me and started whimpering. His body wasn't as quick on the pickup. He had to turn around and spot me before he scrambled backwards. Unfortunately for them, they were backed up against the wall. I took another step forward. Normally, I would charge a 500 yen name-dropping fee but I didn't feel like it that time.

I slammed right hand against the wall beside the guy with the wallet, blocking his escape. He held up the wallet and offered it to me. Of course, that just ticked me off more.

"Do you think I want your money!" I growled at him. "Huh!"

Both guys were just about to piss their pants when an old man shouted. "What's going on over there!"

Just my luck that Iwamoto was the one who found us. I lowered my fists as the jerk walked over to us.

"You again," he growled. "You dirty scum."

"Yah?" I replied.

He turned to the other guys. "You two care to tell me what he did?" he started badgering. "C'mon. He can't do anything to you now. He took something from you, right?"

The two guys looked at the ground and told Iwamoto the truth. I hadn't taken anything from them and at least they were smart enough not to lie. Unfortunately, Iwamoto looked down at the ground and noticed the cigarettes and the wallets.

Iwamoto grinned and looked at me. "I see. You were pinching wallets."

"Whatever!" I shouted.

Iwamoto smirked. Ugh. I still remember that look. I should have used the— Fine. I'll get back to it.

"You're afraid to tell on him," the idiot said. He turned and pointed at me. Apparently no one taught him it was impolite to point.

He launched into some rant about how I was a weed or a cockroach or something. My reply was more creative.

"You shouldn't talk. It makes you sound stupid." With a glare at the two guys who owed me 1000 yen, I turned and walked towards the school gates. I had just stepped into the freedom of the outside world and was about to chew a stick of gum when a punch from out of nowhere hit my head.

I spun back to face the jerk and promised to kill him when I realized who it was.

"Sorry, old man," I said.

"That's Mr. Takenaka to you. Didn't you heard the announcement on the loud speaker?"

"Don't know," I replied as I turned my back on him and that dumb school. "Maybe it wasn't loud enough."

In hindsight, that probably wasn't the brightest move I could make since Takenaka knocked me on the head again. He asked why I was leaving so soon so I told him I got kicked out. Next thing I knew, he was dragging me to the guidance room but the ear. Thankfully, I had a fake ear in my pocket that I used to trick Takenaka with. With a leap off the school wall I was free.

Since I had nothing better to do, I went home. Don't really remember why though. Guess I thought I could watch TV while my then sorry-excuse-for-a-mother slept off another one of her drunken adventures. Of course my mom was up when I got back. Another lecture and hint to move out and I was on the streets again.

Didn't take my long to find a good target to take my stress out on. I was walking down the street in the shopping area when four guys in blue uniforms surrounded me. Of course, I recognize them as the peons of Kuwabara. The guy showed up still sporting the bruisers from last time.

"Urameshi."

I lazily glanced in his direction. "Hey Kuwabara, you're conscious. I'm not used to that."

He grabbed me by my collar and lifted me a little off my feet. Even then the guy was taller than most teenagers. He growled. "That was a lucky shot and you know it." He grinned. "But today, I'm going to fix that."

I grinned. "Sorry about this. I'm in a bad mood and that makes me a real jerk."

With no other warning, I attacked. In a few seconds it was over. Kuwabara hadn't even landed a punch and he was on the ground again.

I sighed and my good mood was restored. As I walked away Kuwabara came to. His buddies stopped him from jumping up and going after me but he was still saying he was going to beat me into the ground before he passed out.

So my day was almost complete. I'd gotten grief at school and at home, and I cleaned Kuwabara's clock as usual… And then… I met this kid.

The soccer ball had rolled down the sidewalk towards me before bumping into my shoes. I picked it up just as this little kid came walking up to me. He asked me for his ball and I crouched down to be on his level.

"Listen kid! It isn't safe to play here. Those cars can flatten you into the pavement!"

The kid just stared at me blankly. Apparently, shouting wasn't going to make my point so I tried another way. I lifted the ball to cover my face and quickly lowered it to show one of my funniest faces. I did this three times with no reaction from the kid. Still think it was odd since kids usually loved those faces. In the end I got him to laugh and probably scared some old ladies as well.

At the time, my only thought was that if all else failed I could still make kids laugh.

I handed the kid his ball and warned him once again not to play with his ball in the street. Guess what he was doing five seconds after I warned him. My good mood vanished again and I muttered to myself as I started to walk away.

"What's the use? He can get squashed for all I care."

Then the ball bounced into the street. It rolled to a stop in the middle of the road. The kid stared dumbly at it. No cars were on the street at that second. I muttered a feeble "Hey." The kid started to walk towards his ball.

"Get back on the sidewalk!"

The kid ignored me. A car appeared around the corner. Its engine was reeving up as it swirled around the corner. The kid had almost reached the ball. The car was coming at him. The kid picked up the ball. The car's brakes started to scream.

The car was just about to hit him. My hands pushed the boy out of the way. I stared at the headlights of the car. It hit me.


End file.
